Labour Growth Group

Last night a standing-room-only crowd came together to be part of a serious argument about the future of the country and our economy. Chris Curtis, @YuanfenYang, @williamnhutton, and @MarkMcvitie spoke to @Geri_E_L_Scott about the ideas now emerging across Labour and the wider centre-left: An Honest Day, new essays from Yuan and colleagues at @TribuneMPs, and Will Hutton’s recent work with @fairnessfdn. For too long, our politics has had too much control and too little argument. But great political projects cannot be sustained by discipline alone. Discipline may hold a project together, but ideas are what give it a place to go. These projects are all different, but they share a basic conviction: Britain’s economic settlement is exhausted. It has left working people paying more, getting less, and watching the basics of a decent life slip further out of reach. An Honest Day argues it must be remade. By ending the rationing of essentials. Rewarding work and enterprise. Confronting rent-seeking. Building a capable state. With a purposeful centre in Whitehall, but real power in every part of the country. And restoring the link between an honest day’s work and a secure, dignified life. The debate our party really needs - about power and policy, not personalities - has already begun. Read An Honest Day (By McVitie with Curtis) - labourgrowth.co.uk Read Yuan's essays - renewal.org.uk/journal/volume… Read Will's paper - fairnessfoundation.com/escaping

This is for the people who do the work. The nurses doing double shifts. The teachers who stay late. The plumbers, the carers, the small builders, the people running shops. The graduates trying to build a life. The founders who chose to build something here. Britain has stopped being a country that backs them. Over 40 years of political choices Britain has built an economy where owning things pays better than building them. Holding scarce land. Holding protected market positions. Holding the right credentials. Holding the right postcode. Gaming process. Capturing public money meant for someone else. These have become safer routes to reward than working, investing, teaching, caring, manufacturing or taking productive risk. This isn't a conspiracy. It's the predictable result of a state that has lost the ability to build, decide, enforce and shape markets in the public interest. The planning system rations land. The energy system rations power. Capital fails to scale British firms. Regulation protects incumbents and crushes challengers. Tax falls hard on work and lightly on position. Government compensates people for the costs this creates. But in rationed markets, that compensation is often captured by the same scarcity that made it necessary. Public money flows through broken systems and strengthens the very interests that broke them. Fiscal space shrinks. The state becomes more cautious, less capable, more dependent on the processes that created the failure. The loop tightens. An Honest Day is a new economic settlement for Britain. The shift required is from a distributive state to a capable one. Support people now. Reform the scarcity that makes support necessary. Reward action, not position. Read it now labourgrowth.co.uk

In the midst of all this turmoil, I’ve been reading @MarkMcvitie and Labour Growth Group’s new blueprint - a hugely impressive set of bold ideas but more than that, a real diagnosis of what has gone wrong in Britain that mean so many are struggling

Today will be dominated by UK political ructions but this economic growth report “An Honest Day” (also out this morning) by @LabourGrowth @MarkMcvitie is a serious piece of work. The current leadership - or any aspirants - should give it a proper read. Easier to co-opt these pro-growth positions whilst in opposition, the second best time is now: static1.squarespace.com/static/66fd981…

Interesting new report from @LabourGrowth outlines one possible path towards a successful political economy

In a world getting more dangerous by the day, the biggest risk for Britain is standing still. That’s why Chris Curtis and @LouHaigh have come together to argue for a bolder economic vision that rewards work and contribution while taking on a system that’s broken. 🔗 👇

EXC: Former transport secretary Louise Haigh, who leads the soft left Tribune group, will make an intervention on the economy next week alongside Chris Curtis, chair of the Labour Growth Group. While from different wings from the party they will outline an economic agenda they blv can unite the party and Labour’s voter coalition, inclu reforms to council tax & stamp duty news.sky.com/story/louise-h…

Labour Growth Group draws up blueprint for how party could cut taxes in overhaul of economic messaging & strategy. Several cabinet ministers and potential leadership contenders are understood to have looked at the work. Full report to be put into the ether after May local elex 👀 news.sky.com/story/cabinet-…

NEW: Bloomberg Saturday read As Keir Starmer faced down the Iran crisis, in a pub just up the road Angela Rayner pitched to replace him. There’s a chasm in British politics between Labour mutineers, markets and a PM contending with Trump’s chaos. — UK government borrowing costs reached their highest in 18 years on the war yet soft-left figures like Lisa Nandy called for looser fiscal rules. Political instability and a new left-wing leader would further test investor confidence. And demands for wide-ranging energy bills support are ultimately what sunk Liz Truss. — Yet Rayner’s intervention shows the key question now is whether she and others move against Starmer in May. Her speech won support from soft-left backers. One said it cemented her as the front-runner, arguing it landed better with MPs than previous efforts by Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting to set out their own stalls. — Labour MPs see two ways rebels could move in May: either a direct challenge led by Rayner, or a push to get a more left-wing cabinet, holding off efforts to replace Starmer until later. One advantage to the latter is Starmer would be the one who weathers the coming economic pain. The downside to waiting for Rayner is Burnham could make it to Westminster. — It should be said there is a significant number of Labour MPs who do not want a left-wing takeover and think the left don’t have the numbers. A minister said it beggared belief that Rayner had made her first proper leadership pitch while Starmer deals with Iran. — Another Labour official said she would have fared better by staying quiet during the crisis like Streeting. A backer of Shabana Mahmood’s policies criticised Rayner for publicly railing against them, predicting that if she became PM she would soon pivot to the right on migration or quickly further lose the support of voters. — Others in Labour are pushing for a more pro-market agenda. Cabinet ministers are circulating a strategy document produced by core figures in @LabourGrowth, which aims to give the leadership a new vision for the government’s purpose having concluded that major economic reforms have fallen by the wayside due to the lack of compelling political arguments. — The project calls for a more “transformative agenda,” warning that “Britain as it is rewards grifters and punishes grafters.” It argues making the link between work and reward is vital if Labour is to win back voters on both its left and right flanks. The group is working with @GoodGrowthFdn to develop a new policy platform and research to show it can rebuild a winning voter coalition. — Policy proposals being examined include shifting the tax burden away from salaried work toward land and economic rent-seeking, merging employees’ NI with income tax, reforming council tax and creating new incentives for entrepreneurship and risk-taking. It also argues for a targeted deregulation push and an energy policy which refocuses the clean energy transition on driving down costs for households and industry, including moving levies off bills and a sprint for cheap electrification. — Starmer’s allies agree Iran is a pivot point for his premiership. Some argue he could re-define his government by taking more of a stand against Trump, getting the country through the energy shock and restoring Britain’s place in the world by rapidly raising defence spending and moving much closer to the EU than currently expected. Nonetheless they know a hit to the economy and mortgages, even if Trump’s fault, rarely ends well for the government of the day. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

@jessicaelgot in The Guardian: theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

Reform say the system is rigged. The Greens say everyday people are getting ripped off. They’re right, but neither is bold enough to fix it. Torching energy security and price caps won’t remake our economy, just drive it into the ground. We’re working on something that can. 👇

ft.com/content/53f66c… Labour must not lose my generation of voters - Chris Curtis MP

Labour cannot afford to write off the generations building Britain’s future. If the Government cannot reforge the link between effort and reward, then young people will go elsewhere at election time. 🔗 👇

We welcome the PM's strong response to the @JohnFingleton1 Review. This is the first government in a generation serious about nuclear. But 2027 must be a backstop, not a target. Reforms through in months, not years. We can't afford any delay in securing Britain's energy supply.

Full statement on Gorton & Denton result 👇

Chris Curtis speaks to @bbcnickrobinson on @BBCRadio4: Last night should tell us voters aren’t simply moving left or right. They’re moving away from a broken system that punishes grafters and rewards grifters. We’ve been working on what this party needs: a plan to change that.

The Tories tripled tuition fees, designed Plan 2 loans, and had over a decade to change them. Now she's in opposition, all of a sudden Kemi's discovered she cares and wants credit for it.

What country are we trying to build? Are we for those putting in the graft - innovating, working, training, investing for the future? Are we willing to take on the grifters - skimming, ripping-off, gaming the broken system? This is what we’re building. More soon. 🔗 👇